The last passenger airliner to disappear under mysterious circumstances before Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was Air France's Flight 447, en route from Rio de Janiero to Paris in 2009.

Communications with the Airbus A330 ended suddenly. It had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil in the early morning hours of June 1 when it hit a heavy thunderstorm nearly four hours after take-off. There was no warning before it crashed, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board.

Four searches over the course of nearly two years finally located the bulk of flight 447's wreckage and the majority of the 228 bodies in a mountain range deep under the ocean.

In May 2011, the aircraft's voice recorder and flight data recorder were recovered from the ocean floor after an extensive search using a miniature submersible vehicle.

In 2012, the cause of the disaster was determined. The official investigation found that the flight crashed due to a combination of technical failures and pilot error. According to the black box recordings, the pilots appeared unaware they were going to crash until the final seconds before hitting the water.

- China Daily